In the Q&A following Thursday morning’s announcement on the expansion of language services, Gov. Andrew Cuomo seemed to suggest that shortening the current five-year deal offered to PEF might not violate his revenue-neutral stipulation for any tweaks to the contract.

Feel free to interpret for yourselves:

Q: Governor, would you consider shortening the contract to be “revenue-neutral”?

Cuomo: What does that mean?

Q: One of the — as PEF describes it — onerous elements [of the proposal] is the five-year length. Would you be willing to roll that back? I know you don’t want to negotiate in public, but on the question of whether it would revenue-neutral — would you consider it to be in that category?

Cuomo: Well, the revenues that are critical are the immediate revenues, right? The revenues five years down the road, we’re working on, but a lot can happen in five years, especially with this economy. We’re talking about this year, next year, year three — these are key years for us. And that’s what revenue-neutral means — this year, next year, the year after, primarily. And as you said … I don’t want to negotiate in public. But we’ve been reasonable and flexible all through this. I think that has been made clear by the fact that the same contract was ratified by CSEA. And CSEA is a larger union, and the management and leadership of CSEA is aggressive and expert, and national in caliber. … So I think that vindicates the reasonableness of our position.

Cuomo said it was his understanding that all of those subject to the potential layoffs had received their notices.

On the subject of the Wall Street protests, Cuomo said he recognized the democratic impulse of those furious at the country’s economic situation and the role played by financial houses. “At the same time, it is a major economic engine for the state. … From the state perspective, there has to be a balance” between punishing bad actors and recognizing the role the financial sector plays in the state’s economy,” he said.

Asked if he was concerned by the newsthat Albany County Executive Michael Breslin would submit a budget calling for a 19 percent tax increase — almost 10 times the height of the new property cap — he said, “It would concern me if I was a resident of the county; it would concern me if I was paying the bill.”

Expanding on this, Cuomo became more animated than at any other time in the press conference:

Cuomo: The law establishes a 2 percent cap or whatever the people want — whatever the people want. … So if the Albany County Executive — and I don’t know the facts, and it’s not my place — says, ‘Look, here’s our situation: We want to do this, we want to build this, we have a problem, we have an immediate need, and we need to raise taxes to 4, 5, 6, 7 percent,’ whatever it is, and the people of the county say yes, god bless them. Fine!

Fred Dicker: But there’s no vote of the people of the county; it’s the county legislature.

Cuomo: Or 60 percent of the board — fine! Fine. We’ve never dictated to anyone what the taxes should be. What we have said is this: When you look at the past, property taxes have been going up astronomically. I can’t tell you how many people have come up to me and said, ‘They’re forcing me to sell my house, they’re forcing me to move out of the state. My taxes are higher than my mortgage.’ And this mentality of automatic pilot, where the property taxes just keep going up 5, 6, 7 percent every year — when, by the way, nothing in anybody’s life is going up at that rate — their income isn’t going up at that rate, the value of their home isn’t going up at that rate. But the local government just, almost on automatic pilot, keeps raising [taxes]. That just has to stop.

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